


Bittersweet Connections

by MissFiction



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Infidelity, PWP, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 00:12:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16733328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissFiction/pseuds/MissFiction
Summary: One definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over while inexplicably expecting a different result.





	Bittersweet Connections

Cigarette smoke crawls from his lips, the acrid scent of nicotine and tar billowing around him like a fog in the air. Its his fourth or fifth in a row at this point, he’s lost count. He inhales again as the smoke slips away, deeply, pulling some of it back into his lungs before releasing it back in another weaker puff.

He’s waiting for her, the way he used to, to come back to his apartment. He is lying on his back, staring through the ceiling, propped up with one up arm behind his head and his one leg propped up over his other knee. It would look elaborately casual to anyone who didn’t know any better, but she would know when she saw him that he had been  _waiting_. It was  _too_ relaxed, so casual that it looked staged, and she would be right when she inevitably teased him about it. She has a key to the apartment and he knows she’ll just let herself in when she arrives the way she always does, but she’s an hour later than he would have expected her to be and the shattering of his expectations and routine makes him chain-smoke.  

But he should know better than to have expectations by now, anyway.

It takes an absurd amount of self control for him not to budge from the pretense of his position on the bed when he hears the soft sound of keys jingling in the distance, knowing that the only thing that separates her from him now is a few thin planes of wood and a couple pieces of fabric. The door opens and shuts unceremoniously. The click of her heels echoes through the quiet apartment to signify her stepping inside, but as she (most likely) toes off the shoes, her bare feet make her moments much more unpredictable. He can hear the lock click back into place. It sounds like she walks into the kitchen, and then he can’t hear her for a few moments. More smoke billows out from his lips.

There’s the soft sound of glass tinkling in the distance, and some cabinets opening and closing. A part of him wants to get up and go to her, but then he would miss out on the sweet sensation of her coming to  _him_.

Before long he can hear her moving around the apartment again. It sounds like she’s humming to herself, probably whatever song was last playing in her car on the ride over, and he feels a rise of anticipation surge in his chest. Briefly, he wonders what to do when she opens his bedroom door. Does he move? Should he sit up and look at her like he’s checking to see who exactly she was, or would that look ridiculous because he knows she’s coming? If he doesn’t move at all, like he knows its her and he’s not as excited as he  _is_ to see her after several days without contact, would she look for meaning in that the same way he’ll inevitably read the look in her eyes when they first meet his?

It doesn’t matter, in the end. When she opens the door Billy automatically casts a heavy look in her direction, the direction of the sound, and she offers a soft smile as soon as she walks into the room.

She seems almost shy as she walks through the door, easing it open just enough to allow herself to slip inside, and she shuts the door tight behind her even though they’re the only ones in the whole apartment. As she approaches the edge of the bed he sweeps his gaze up and down her body, relishing in the way she blushes and slips the buttons of her jacket through the loops, off her shoulders, and onto his floor without a care or consideration.

“Hey, you,” he breathes, trying to sound casual enough, trying not to relay his enthusiasm and anticipation for her presence. Her hair is carefully styled, falling around her shoulders in haphazard waves over a design he doesn’t recognize and can’t place on her tee shirt. He’s trying not to pressure her with little more than the tone of his voice, and she’s trying not to let his voice warm her to her core like it always does.

“Hey,” she replies smoothly. Her eyes rake over him where he’s still lying on the bed. “You waiting for me or somethin’?” Billy huffs a laugh, marveling briefly at how well he still seems to know her. It’s true what they say: people really don’t change.

Another puff of smoke drifts from his lips, he lets it just ebb from his mouth so it curls around her fingers as she gently plucks his cigarette from his fingertips and takes a heavy pull. When she breathes out the smoke flows around her like water and Billy just watches enraptured for a moment before shaking his sentimentality away. The heat in his eyes sends chills down the entire length of her body, as well as sends a throbbing sensation through her very core.

She smiles and sighs dreamily at the taste of the smoke, and it sparks something in his chest like flint striking against steel, but it doesn’t catch flame. “Long time no see, mm?”

It actually has been, too. Before, back when they spent every waking moment together, she used to say it in this teasing tone of voice, one that acknowledged the irony that it had almost certainly only been a couple hours since they had last seen each other– at best– but this time it had actually been a couple months. The passage of time is apparent; her hair is longer than he remembered her usually liking to wear it, and she seems more subdued though maybe it’s just the awkward atmosphere that followed her into the room. Billy also notices that the liner around her eyes looks smudged, like she might have absently wiped some of it away through the day, but the look still suits her.

“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you, to be honest,” he says. She gently places the cigarette back between his fingers, but he simply takes another drag and then stamps it out in the ashtray on his bedside table. Their fingers brush together in a way that feels decidedly intimate but could be construed as innocent if either one of them had recoiled from the touch. Of course, neither of them did. Her skin was cool where his was warm, and when she tries to pull back and murmur a quiet apology, he hooks his pinky and ring finger to catch one of hers before she can pull away. He revels in the look in her eyes as they meet his in surprise.

“…I missed you,” he adds, through another puff of smoke, and immediately wonders if its too much. She gets this strange faraway look in her eyes as his fingers twist more firmly around hers. He thinks he can see her ghosts lingering there for a moment, but then the look is gone as suddenly as it came.

Without another thought, her other hand comes forward and touches the soft skin of his jawline, partly just to touch him, but also partly to stop him when he looks like he’s about to sit up. His hand catches her wrist and holds it there. He wants to kiss it, to turn her palm in his hand and place all of his affections there for her to hold, but he resists the urge.

Rather than walking around to the other side of the bed to sit down, she casually decides to climbs over him to reach the empty place beside him. Billy is confused when her knee initially touches the bed beside him, and both his heart and cock jump excitedly when she swings the other leg over him like climbing into a saddle. The way she straddles him briefly leaves him eye level with her breasts through the thin fabric of her tee shirt. As though sparked by some unseen electricity, he surges forward and wraps his arms around her frame, keeping her completely still against him. Billy presses his forehead to the spot in the middle of her chest, and her breath sticks to her lungs.

Her fingers tangle themselves into his hair, twisting his blond curls between them and gently scraping her blunt nails against his scalp. She always did tell him that she loved when he wore his hair long, and it’s been a while since he’d been for a proper cut. She can feel his warm breath through the fabric of her tee, and for a moment she manages to forget everything else in the world around her.

She doesn’t know how long she lets him hold her like that, how long she allows the heat of his body to seep into her bones, before she whispers, “This isn’t what I came here for…”

“I know,” he replies.

“…I’m still with…”

“Yeah. I know.”

But his arms squeeze tighter instead of letting her go.

Instead of drawing back, pulling away like she knows she’s supposed to, she allows the moment to drag out for what feels like forever. Instead of detaching herself and creating space between them, her arms twine around the back of his neck and hold him closer to her chest. Billy can hear her heartbeat thrumming below the skin and slides his arms under the back of her shirt in an effort to get closer to it. Instead of resisting, she lets her entire body relax into his, fully seats herself in his lap, and lets his hands wander wherever he wants them to. His touch sets her skin on fire. All she wants to do is melt into him like a burning wax candle.

“You  _know_ we can’t do this,” she says quietly, but neither of them puts a stop to it.

“Please,” murmurs Billy. His voice is soft, muffled, but holds an edge of desperation. “Please let me touch you.”

“You  _are_  touching me,” she whispers. Her hands trail around his neck, never leaving his skin for even a moment, until she’s gently touching his chin. He can feel her sweet breath fanning over him and the intensity of the moment makes his chest hurt. Her eyes bore into his for one tense second too long before she touches her fingers to his eyelids to make them close. His eye lashes are so long; she could probably content herself with doing nothing more than watching his expressions and counting them for hours. Perhaps in another life where she truly belonged to him.

“ _Properly,_ ” Billy replies, angling his face towards hers. His lips part in a quiet sigh, and he doesn’t open his eyes. She leans into him and for a moment he thinks she’s actually going to touch her expressive red lips to his, but she narrowly avoids the contact at the last second in favour of nuzzling into his cheek. His chest fucking  _aches_  at the movement, but he simply raises a hand to pull a few strands of hair to his lips instead. “ _Please._ ”

Hesitation rolls off her body in waves; she knows that what she is doing is completely wrong. There is no version of this where she isn’t hurting two of the most important people in her life, whatever parts of it she is able to share with either one of them. Of course a part of her knew when she sent Billy that text a couple hours ago that nothing good was going to come from seeing him again, that this exact scenario was going to play out exactly the same way it always did, but the way she  _feels_ with him is intoxicating even if it’s wrong. Everything feels more vibrant when she lets herself fall into his arms. Even if she knows it kills him when she leaves to go back to her other life in the morning.

But when his teeth softly nip at her throat and his hands slide her shirt past her torso, she doesn’t stop him. His big hands trail up her arms, so they stretch over her head as he guides it up and off her body. She doesn’t stop him then, either. He flings the fabric somewhere past her shoulder, eager to free up his hands to explore the skin as it’s revealed.

“I want you so badly,” she admits, whether to him or to herself she’s not really sure. Either way, the low breathy sound that her words draw out falls from his mouth sends a shot of heat right to her core. Without really intending to, she rolls her hips hard against his. It sends shockwaves through her body from the apex of her thighs throughout her extremities. Her fingernails dig sharply into his shoulders as her fingers  _curl_. Billy clings to her in surprise, choking. His head rolls back as she moves, pulling another moan from deep in his chest.

It’s sweet music, the sounds he makes when they’re together, as wrong as she _knows_  it is. When his fingers curl responsively into her hips to pull her tighter against his hardening cock, there isn’t anywhere else she’d rather be. The rest of the world falls away completely and all she can hear is the sound of their increasingly heavy breathing as the oxygen between them mingles.

“I want you to take these off,” he murmurs, casually dipping his fingers inside the waistband of her leggings and panties in one fell swoop. Her body goes taught like a bow as his fingers explore, coming into preliminary contact with the small bundle of nerves. The movement of her hips falters and stutters as he presses firmly and circles the pressure around where she wants it most. “That’s it, baby, yeah…” Billy mouths at her throat as she stretches out in front of him, rolling her shoulders back to ask for his attention to her chest without using her words. His ministrations descend until he’s nipping at her collar bones and around the edges of her bra, stripping her of it and lavishing attention to each of her nipples.

The first time he makes her moan, he immediately redoubles his efforts to make her do it again and again. There are tears burning in her eyes as the heat burns through her body, but she presses his hands exactly where she wants them despite the agony. It makes her chest hurt, the look in his half-lidded eyes as he tries to watch her every movement, every inhale of breath, the way her body responds to this touch and that.

Piece by piece their clothes are stripped away until it’s hot, flushed skin against skin. First her shirt, then his. Then his boxers, her leggings. He rolls her over, and she immediately wraps her ankles behind his back. He grinds himself into her centre, murmuring incoherently into the side of her neck.

He hasn’t tried to kiss her since she dodged him a few minutes ago,  _only_ a few minutes he realizes with a jolt, but he wonders if he should try again when she holds his face between her hands and deliberately looks him in the eyes. Her mouth drops open. As soon as his gaze falls to her lips she surges forward to press an insistent kiss, one that he meets with ample enthusiasm. Her tongue touches his bottom lip and he immediately opens up to her to allow her to taste him; he notes instantly that she tastes like his cigarettes and some possessive part of him adores it. Something dark in the back of his mind wonders if she’ll still taste like his cigarettes when she leaves him, when she goes back to wherever it is she goes when she’s not with him.

“Billy…!” she cries as his teeth nip against her lips. There’s red lipstick smeared from the corner of his mouth, and she realizes that she must be starting to look like a real mess. It doesn’t seem to bother Billy, though. In fact, he seems to want her to come more and more undone, disheveled, disordered. His hands are rough and insistent as he manipulates her body, the way she would have expected them to be all those months ago when they first met, though he’s perhaps a touch more desperate now than he might have been before.

Her hand wraps around his length to offer smooth even strokes, but he hisses and lightly pushes her hands away. “Let me fuck you,” he begs. “Please, let me fuck you the way I know you want it, the way I know he doesn’t, let me–”

But she shakes her head, disoriented, surprising them both. He can feel in the way she quivers like a leaf in his grip that she  _does_ want it, but it seems to be the boundary beyond which she refuses to cross, as foolishly arbitrary as it is.  _No, no we can’t do that,_ she tries to say, though she’s not sure she managed to actually verbalize the thought. She tries again just in case, but her voice just sounds wrecked to her own ears.

He seems to understand anyway, by the way he soothes her, kissing the flushed skin around her throat. He shushes her quietly while gently running his thumb along her cheekbones, but she can feel him deflate in disappointment. It feels for a moment as though he’s going to pull away, but she locks her arms tighter around his neck, clinging desperately. She knows she’s being contrary, frustrating, ambiguous, indefinite… she’s stuck in this horrid middling ground where she  _wants_ but can’t take. He’s trapped there with her too, and it’s why she stopped coming around in the first place even though he gave her the key to his apartment as a standing offer to seek refuge whenever she wanted. It wasn’t  _fair,_ to either of them. The  _wanting_ of it all quickly became too much to be sustainable, but something keeps pulling her back to him, despite all of her very best efforts, anyway.

“Okay,” he whispers, “Okay…” It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t know what to do, but she palms his straining erection again to show she didn’t want to  _stop_. His tongue dips into her mouth again as a show of reciprocation instead of speaking. He groans, understanding that she wanted to continue but not sure how to make it happen. It’s pretty clear that she doesn’t seem to know either. “Okay… Can I… Would you like it if I used my mouth? To make you cum?”

Maybe it’s the tone in which he says it, or maybe it’s the  _look_ in his eyes as he practically begs her to eat her pussy, the way that imploring deep blue stare looks right into her very soul, but she’s nodding her head emphatically before her brain has even fully processed the request coming from his lips. Without an ounce of hesitation, Billy slides down her squirming body, pressing wet kisses to her clavicle, sternum, belly, and then lower. His hands cradle her hips, lifting them possessively so he can access her body more fully. She chases his touch as he pulls away, but his hands easily coax her back down.

Before she can even begin to question what the hell she’s doing now, his tongue connects to her core and causes the end of all rational thought. Her hips rock into his tongue, rolling and rolling insistently until he needs to fold his hands as if in prayer over her pelvis to hold her down. He’s groaning something, growling as he tastes her, though whether he’s speaking words or otherwise she couldn’t say for sure.

It’s record time before she’s seeing stars, sparking like fireworks behind her eyelids. She tries to watch him as he moves against her, looking reverent and determined to make her finish without using his hands for anything more than holding her thighs apart. Her fingers twist in his hair. The look on Billy’s face as she cries his name hoarsely, squirming against his grip like it’s the sweetest torture, tips her over the edge. For an instant she’s completely weightless and free-falling through the air before she lands flat on her back again, not actually having moved an inch, back into her own body.

There’s a slight tremor in her hands as she reaches for him and guides him back up her body, kissing him fervently. He grinds his erection into the bed as her hands stroke around his face and down his neck; he moves slowly, carefully, as if he doesn’t want her to notice. But she does, and she encourages him.

“Fuck,” he curses, wiping his mouth in his hand.  “Fuck, fuck do you know you taste incredible…? What I wouldn’t give… I would do anything… I wish you would…” His voice trails off. A thousand unspoken words hang between the two of them.

“I know,” she whispers. “It’s your turn now, okay? You have to cum for me, Billy, okay baby? I can’t go until I’ve at least given you that…”

“Don’t go,” he replies immediately. He regrets the words as soon as they slip from him lips, but it’s too late to take them back now. She knows how he feels about her, they both know it, but for years they’ve been dancing around it and avoiding it. Instead of addressing the root of the problem, they decided to let the tension rise between them forever without acting on it, until it inevitably exploded between them.

“Okay,” she hums gently. His response is so visceral and sincere it causes hot tears to spring into her eyes. A small smile curves her lips, and her eyes soften towards him in a way that makes Billy’s chest hurt in a way he’ll probably never be able to articulate. “Now… relax…” Her fingers wrap around his length, and he practically thrusts into the stimulation. The whole time she touches him she leans her forehead against his, to stay as close as possible.

When he comes, Billy’s hands scramble to hold onto any part of her he can. Their breath mingles between them, the scent of cigarette smoke still lingering. His lips part; he gasps as the motion slowly overstimulates him. She memorizes every expression that passes over his face, each and very single one no matter how small or fleeting.

When he can finally breathe again, he collapses against her and pulls her flush against his body. His grip is tight like he’s afraid to let her go, and her chest sets to aching all over again.

The silence stretches like a rubber band between them, taught and tense until she fears it might snap. They allow it to hang between then for a while before she can’t take it anymore and finally breathes out, “I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing.”

“Me neither,” agrees Billy with a wry chuckle. “All I know is that I’m happy to see you.” Her smile is gentle, but it doesn’t reach all the way to her eyes. She leans her face into the tendon where his neck meets his shoulder and absorbs his warmth instead of replying. His hands trail along her spine, sending chills up and down her arms again. It’s comfortable. If she doesn’t think about the world waiting outside for them, she thinks she could be very happy where she is forever. Though, she supposes, reality must set back in eventually.

She doesn’t know what else to say to the obvious affection in his tone, so she says nothing at all and waits for his breathing to even out in that way that signifies he’s most likely fallen asleep beside her. She can’t help but savour the unexpectedly pleasant way his body seems to fit perfectly against hers. In some ways, she feels like a jigsaw puzzle piece that is cut to somehow fit into the picture despite displaying the incorrect image on its face.

.

.

.

.

.

When Billy wakes up, the place in the bed where her warm body had been only a few hours prior is vacant and cold to the touch.

The sheets stretch away from the mattress, haphazardly hanging off the edge as though she had been tangled in them but so desperate to escape that she tripped over herself in the dead of the night. In the cold light of morning, he’s not sure why he held any hope that things might be different this time.

The cigarettes from the previous night are still on his night stand where he left them. He casually pulls one from the package with his teeth and lights it was the flick of his thumb against his lighter. He doesn’t inhale the toxic smoke right away. Instead, he simply stares at the burning ember on the end and watches as the smoke curls upwards towards the ceiling. The thick, familiar scent of nicotine fills the air but this time it causes his stomach to turn. Once the nausea passes, he’ll smoke the cigarette anyway. He is a creature of habit, after all, no matter how dirty the habit may be.  

**Author's Note:**

> SO that's what we call some self-indulgent trash. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! Do me a favor and smash that like if ya did, it really helps keep me motivated.


End file.
